


Acquire and beget a temperance

by queen_kumquat



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest, The Tempest - Shakespeare
Genre: 1980s, Cambridge, Gen, Post-Canon, References to Shakespeare, Students, The Tempest, Theatre, caliban - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 08:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11870817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_kumquat/pseuds/queen_kumquat
Summary: Lawrie agrees to fill in as Caliban at short notice. She's got her RADA diploma and a couple years of of acting contracts under her belt, and she's grown up a bit.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [antonia_forest_fanworks_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/antonia_forest_fanworks_2017) collection. 



> **Prompts:**  
>  1\. Lawrie finally gets to play Caliban!  
> This could either be a future lives fic, in which times have changed, Maxine Peake is playing Hamlet and an older Lawrie is cast as Caliban in a gender-blind bit of casting. Or it could be a young Lawrie in the original time period - in which case the hows and whys of how she gets to play Caliban are up to you!
> 
> This story also happens to fulfil this prompt:  
> 2\. I'd love to read a future-fic about Lawrie at drama school, or (for earlier iterations of the timeline especially) acting in unglamorous provincial rep. Or perhaps a sixth-form Kingscote production, in which Tim has a freer directorial hand, leading to tensions in their friendship.
> 
> Updated to correct errors on 20/9/17.

  
"What am I going to do? The understudy's now doing two roles, can't call it acting but at least it’s a live body, with three cast getting flu, and now bloody Nigel's got appendicitis! And the Tempest starts on Tuesday! It's a curse!"  
  
Tim Keith listened to her friend's rant down the phone. Harriet's first real directorial role in rep, and illness was knocking down her actors like ninepins. Local theatre managers would forgive bad acting – eventually - but having to cancel a performance meant the blacklist for life. Hence the anguished call to Tim, who'd worked with Harriet at the Coliseum after her degree. Tim _knew_ people.  
  
And was unflappable in other people's crises, as proven by Tim's calm reply, "What role was Nigel playing?"  
"Caliban. It's quite a short part, really. I'll take what I can get I suppose, just want to avoid some horrible child in a gorilla-suit cliché..."  
  
On the phone, Tim smiled, silently. "This might be your lucky day! I _do_ know someone. Lawrie's been desperate to play Caliban for years, has it all down perfectly, every word, but thanks to staff machinations never was allowed the role at school. And the more common Shakespeare plays didn't feature much at RADA when Lawrie was there. I'll call Lawrie - sorry, Lawrence, the name is, - and check no life-changing role has turned up since we were drowning our sorrows in the Porcupine last month, but assuming not, I think you'll be grateful!"  
  
Harriet gabbled appreciatively, the more so when Tim called back to confirm Lawrie had no objection to performing Caliban over the next week in Cambridge for the small wage offered, and would be there for the 3pm rehearsal the next day. "It's Saturday, not a working day, so I'll set off first thing," Lawrie had said, currently – unbelievably, her family thought - still working for a family firm of solicitors in Preston, as she had done part-time all through a fairly-successful run of drama followed by panto. Though Tim doubted she'd still have the job after disappearing for a week with no notice.

Lawrie had been uncharacteristically quiet when Tim had excitedly called saying "We need you! For _Caliban_!" She mustn't jinx it this time. _They_ would certainly be watching.  
  
Tired and headachy, Lawrie disembarked the rattly Cross-Country train in Cambridge. Trains without loos were a bugbear, and the bus-on-wheels trains horrendously noisy, but National Express would have taken three times as long. She asked for advice on getting to the theatre, and was waved towards a bus stop. "It's a two-mile walk in the cold, otherwise, love," said the bearded codger defending the barrier. Lawrie gave up her sustaining thought of coffee-and-bun when she handed 50p to the bus driver and received no change. Southern prices would take some getting used to again. She'd had breakfast; there would be dinner somewhere later. Actors always got fed, eventually.  
  
The advantage of a tourist town was that one didn't look or feel hopeless when asking for directions every two minutes, and, with the help of only three separate people, Lawrie made it from King’s Parade, down some chilly alleyways it pleased Cambridge to think of as streets, to the Corn Exchange. The posters were up already: 3-8 February, Anglian Players, The Tempest. It was real. She would be performing Caliban here, in front of 800 people (three to four hundred more likely; Shakespeare in February wouldn't sell out), press would come...  
  
Lawrie steeled herself to make her entrance. Not Sophia; the Anglians were a kitchen-sink outfit mainly. No sounding too posh. No fakery, though. Or nice, she could be that _nice_ girl , Doris-like, but no, too gentle. She needed to make clear she knew what she was doing, that, now _she_ was here, the show would be all right. Herself, then; but channelling clear competence; so: Nicola, Ann, or Rowan?  
  
Copying Rowan's land-possessive stride, Lawrie entered the blocky building. "Here for the rehearsal, is you? Down there, or possibly the far room on the right," a caretaker-type waved her on. She entered the main cavern of the building, walked past the disappointing plastic chairs that could have been from any church hall, towards the scaffolding-encrusted stage where a thin woman was running a hand through wiry ginger hair and telling two men in jeans what to do. Trinculo and Stephano, clearly. They ran through the scene and the woman - Harriet? - shunted her wire glasses back up her nose and looked over to Lawrie.   
"Can we help you?" she called.  
"Yes," Lawrie replied, confident, Nicola. "I'm Lawrence Marlow. Caliban."  
  
She anticipated the "Ah, nice to meet you", that she'd had in so many regional theatres and rooms over pubs. This time, it didn't happen. The director twisted the arm of her glasses again.   
"Lawrence Marlow?"  
"Yes?"  
"But you're a girl!"


	2. Chapter 2

  
Both men had stopped and turned to gaze at Lawrie - _'as if I were a revoltingly endearing five-year-old whose very dim besotted granny thought she could do it'_ , she said later - while the director simply looked concerned, verging on panic. Lawrie managed to avoid her voice shaking - dramatic training came in handy _so_ often - as she replied steadily, "I was named after my grandfather's brother. Second, unexpected twin. They had to use the boy name anyway." Daft logic, really - they'd managed to scrape up the name Sybil, terrible as that was, for a middle name, after all. "But yes, didn't Tim say? She said you needed a Caliban, I've already learnt the role, I can do it, what's the problem?"  
  
One of the gaunt chaps on stage wrinkled his top lip, as if round a non-existent cigarette. "Problem, love? For starters, how're you goin' to rape Miranda, eh?" He looked down at her, legs apart, as if planning to demonstrate.  
  
Lawrie didn't look at him as she dropped her bag and the coat that had been long crawling off her shoulders anyway, and sprang lightly onto the steel deck that made up the temporary stage. Standing up, she felt more on a par with the actors, and gratifyingly, a couple inches taller than the director. She decided it was time to steer the conversation herself. "Is that how you're doing it?", she queried of Harriet, facing away from the actor who had spoken. "Caliban-the-monster who physically attacked Miranda and still wants to produce lots of ‘little Calibans’? Has those urges? I can do that if you like. Though _personally_ I prefer the interpretation of 'violated' where its simply assumed that the dark monster is impertinent to ask anything of Miranda and it’s a _social_ violation. What do you think?"  
  
Harriet began to look less tense, her stress levels back down to a mere "incredibly worried", and gave a small sigh. "I do see Caliban as a sympathetic character - he's capable of seeing so much beauty in ‘this scepter'd isle’ and he is, really, the rightful heir of the island. I want to show the parallels between him and Prospero, both denied inheritance of their realms." Lawrie nodded, eagerly. The Caliban-as-denied-colonised-slave was her pet theory, and Harriet clearly was of a similar mindset. "But, I'm simultaneously sure that growing up on an island with only one female character, and being somehow inhuman, he - it - would have been drawn to Miranda, and base urges – adolescence - would, at some point, have taken over. We see how he and Trinculo react to wine, after all."

  
Lawrie was familiar with this view - the classic portrayal, really, and had realised years ago that if she were ever to play Caliban for a paying audience, she would have to convince them that her Caliban _could_ be a sexual predator – whether he actually was or not. Luckily, she had met someone upon whom to base that, and nodded again. "Sure. Is this Prospero? Oh well, let's pretend he is. Shall we run through I., ii. and see what you think?"  
  
Harriet hid any amusement at this young lass's confidence. "OK. Ben, you're Prospero for the minute - stand there calling Caliban to enter. Simon, you can be Miranda, just awoken - look, just lie there looking charming, it’s not difficult! Lawrence, stand behind me 'within', then enter to them. From "'What ho! Slave', please."  
  
Ben, all prowling denim, flicked through his script to an unannotated section, clearly unfamiliar to him, and Harriet, huffing slightly, pointed him to the lines.  
"What ho! Slave! Caliban!", he called out towards Lawrie. "Thou earth! Thou, speak!" The disdain was probably coincidence rather than skill, Harriet decided sadly. Ben was competent enough when guided through every line, but otherwise tended to the wooden.  
Lawrie, behind Harriet, could clearly project a voice: "There's wood enough within." Sulky, a teenager resenting adult demands they do chores.  
Prospero continued, Lawrie flounced onto stage, and pushed herself into Ben's face as she finally got to do her speech, empathising with how unfair it was for Caliban: "This island's _mine_ , by Sycorax my mother! Taken from me..."  
Ben's improvised Prospero responded to the prompt with more enthusiasm. "Thou lying slave!"  


Lawrie knew how she had to do the next bit; not like in her bedroom, where Caliban was mourning the lost chance to avoid being the last of his race, but proud, angry, entitled. _Rigid_. She'd spent that evening in the cinema with Rigid partly terrified that he would go too far, slightly wishing he would, but mostly trying to unobtrusively observe his every move and pose, to note for future reference. She pulled herself up straight and swaggered up to Ben, way closer than he was comfortable with. Lawrie managed to tilt her head back so she could look down her nose at the taller Ben. "O ho, o ho!" she chortled, and jabbed her finger into Prospero's chest, painfully. "Thou hast prevented me." She glared into Prospero's eyes, and Ben, unused to dominant behaviour from women, twitched and looked down - _perfect_ , played for and got - while Lawrie thrusted her groin into his - contact achieved , _point_ to her  \- to make clear the intent of the line "I had peopled else/This isle with Calibans."  


She stepped back to allow Prospero space, then her favourite lines, spitting an ugly threat: "I know how to curse!" Rigid again, blaming a chick for getting him hot and bothered. Then controlling himself, realising who had the power. She went, hence.  
  
The stage was quiet a moment, until Harriet gave a small relieved smile, and the quiet man - Simon? - grinned and came to shake her hand. Friendly, despite the leather-jacket carapace, not man-trying-to-break-her-fingers, like Ben would probably do in a minute.  
  
"Nice one. Who'd've fought a posh bird could be all so menacing? Almost made me think you's been a gangster chick in yez spare time!" His London accent matched the words and Lawrie realised this Simon could have naturally channelled her predatory Caliban. Luckily, he didn’t seem inclined to do so - a mild-mannered Ted? - _Jukie_ \- while Ben was still looking uncomfortable, poked in the ego. However, Ben had caught Harriet's eye, she and Lawrie had both seen him do it, and he clearly had more self-preservation than to argue with his director the day before the tech rehearsal.  
  
"You'll do," approved Harriet. Her voice wasn't a RADA one - not just lacking nice middle-class vowels, but, tellingly, confident in her flat sounds, not even _considering_ _trying_ to be RADA. Harriet really was spearheading a new, regional voice in theatre. Lawrie wondered briefly whether to adopt a dialect for the role; decided against - too distracting given the short rehearsal time, and they'd heard her normal voice anyway. "Come back and meet your Prospero and Miranda."  
  
The four of them clambered off the stage - hopefully someone would build some steps before Tuesday - and Lawrie followed the others into a bland room where three more actors were standing around, chatting. At least two of them were at ease with each other, but trying to ignore the third, Lawrie observed.

  
"Tea's mashed," commented the one woman, incomprehensibly.  
"Ah, grand," responded Harriet. "Lawrence, or do you prefer Lawrie, milk and sugar?"  
"Um, Lawrie, Lawrie is fine. Milk and two sugars, please."  


The new people were staring at her. Harriet kindly did the honours. "Yes, Lawrence Marlow is a girl. Yes, she's doing Caliban - we've just tested her and she's quite good. Better than Nigel ever was, bless him."  
  


"Wouldnae be difficult," muttered a wiry man, a decade older than Ben and Simon, who passed over the milk. "Calum Falkner. Ariel." Lawrie took the bottle, muttering thanks, inclined to like him but ever-repulsed by her nemesis, Ariel. "Monster of a man, you'd think it would transfer onto stage, no?"  


"Calum, do be quiet! Lawrence, oh, _Lawrie_ is it? She doesn't need all our dirt raked up immediately!" This was a pompous middle-aged man, plump, over-confident of his talents - like Anthony Merrick if he weren't a childhood friend. "Tony Smith. I've been upgraded to Prospero, so mugging up for all I’m worth, ha! And here's our beautiful Miranda!" He gestured to the woman who'd handed her her tea - younger than him, older than Lawrie - who rolled her eyes crossly at him.  
  
"Helen Fay. A _person_ , not Miranda. Good to have you on board. About time we had another woman around here." Harriet pointedly ignored this and Lawrie wondered what that was all about - clearly this cast had had tensions even beyond the usual for rep groups - but at least, after successfully meeting Ben's challenge, they seemed happy to accept her as an improved Caliban.  


She found her voice. "So - are Ben and Simon Trinculo and Stephano?"

  
"Yes," Harriet answered. "Ben was the small parts but he deserved a larger one, and the two of them work pretty well together, chucking a few circus skills into the mix. Only difficulty is he still needs to be Gonzalo as well, so there's a few lines to be changed to make that possible. Simon gets to be Alonso at least too, possibly a third part. Our new Ferdinand is a lad I taught recently at Anglia, who is quite good when he remembers what he's doing. And then I have two sixth-formers from Hills Road to order about and be sailors. They'll have to cover the Boatswain and Sebastian, and if neither has the presence for Antonio, I'll have to be usurped Milan myself, and hang what the audience think of gender-blind casting! Sorry, Lawrie - just to warn you, the locals are a bit trad about what they want from their Shakespeare! Nothing for it though, just have to front up and get through it. The others should be here by six, and it'll be a late night. Drink up, and we'll all start at Act 1, Scene 2. One of the kids can do a Gardie's run for dinner. Now Ben, when you enter..."  
  
They moved back into the main cavernous hall of the Corn Exchange - _Cornex_ , Tony called it in a knowing way, but no-one else did - and Tony and Helen began. Tony declaimed the lines well, enunciating clearly, but otherwise stood there, like a statue of Milan rather than the angry, manipulative deposed Milan himself. Helen was better as Miranda - of course, she'd rehearsed as Miranda from the start - suddenly convincingly beautiful, yet scared - of what? Of her father? Of Caliban? Lawrie remembered Tony's description of the absent Nigel, and it made sense for how he was now playing Prospero, righteously angry that the monster had had designs on his daughter. Time to be the sulky monster, and she would rather enjoy threatening this man who had probably never experienced sexual fear in his life. Making him step backwards and stutter nervously, was, Lawrie felt in later life, better than her first standing ovation.  
  
She watched Ariel with particular interest. This Ariel was water and air to Caliban's earth and fire; leaping, curling, suddenly there, suddenly not. The lines weren't always making much sense - Calum, she found out later, was a mime and acrobat, rather than an actor, but the spirit of Ariel came out through that movement, in a way Lawrie could never do at all until drama school. Watching Calum bounding in to land unexpectedly behind Tony and upstage him, she realised she could, now, manage an Ariel if she had to. In an emergency. _Purely_ for professionalism. Left to herself, she'd avoid the horrible beast forever.  
  
They missed out the end of the act, Ferdinand not having yet arrived. Time for Lawrie to be ‘afeared of nips and pinches and spirits’ - easy, this, same fears as lighting gas or being expected to tackle weeding, where the thorns always got her. She hid under Trinculo's cloak.  
  


Too late, she realised she and Ben would be under the cloak together. Ben, as Trinculo, dived under it to join her, lying unnecessarily, she felt, on top of her. She pulled her head aside, trying to knee him off her, and was most relieved when Simon's Stephano poked Ben to wake them up. It was with genuine appreciation that Lawrie grovelled to Simon for rescuing her wretched self and offered to worship him, but as she drunkenly cavorted well out of Trinculo's reach - she knew she was entertaining doing this bit - she raised an eyebrow at Ben. ' _We both know I'm better than you_ ', it said.  
  
And Ben slowly relaxed, was cheerfully entertained by Lawrie, and the rest of the rehearsal went well. Harriet resigned herself to doing Antonio - the kids were quite good, better than anyone at Kingscote, Lawrie thought, but both were too small and young-looking to convince as a middle-aged prince, Tony's brother.

Tony came up to Lawrie as Harriet worked with Ferdinand and Miranda. " _Do_ watch out for Ben. He doesn't bear grudges, he won't mind you upstaging him, but he is rather... what we used to call, ' _not safe in taxis_ ', you know."

  
Or cinemas, Lawrie thought. She rubbed her long thumbnails, in case of need next time she had to be under that cloak with Ben. Ben wasn't the first actor to try it on, and, even when she was established in main roles in the West End, she doubted there would be a last. So much for actors generally being gay – remarkably few seemed to be. She smiled at Tony, needing to make sure he was an ally, not another competitor. "Thank you."  
  
The kids returned; 'Gardies', Lawrie gathered, was an institution, selling burgers and kebabs to students and actors and workmen until 2am every night since time immemorial. "I got you a yiros, miss. It's got everything, miss." The boy looked more nervous about whether he had satisfactorily provided food than over his new role as Sebastian. Lawrie had to admit that the fresh, warm pitta bread, tasty meat, crunchy vegetables and a drizzle of chili sauce and one of unidentifiable white substance, really hit the spot. A few chunky chips - she avoided the ones covered in mayonnaise - what perversion was that? - and she felt ready to continue for some hours.  
  
Which was just as well, as it was past 2am when Harriet called a halt, the four packs of chocolate digestives ordered at midnight all empty. The show was coming together. More importantly, the new cast were all on speaking terms and might even make it through the run without killing each other. If no-one else ended up shagging each other, anyway. 

Harriet clawed her frizzy hair again. It was rep. Low pay, cold rooms, a new woman. A run without sex was _never_ going to happen.  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

  
"You're on my sofa, I'm afraid, Lawrie," Harriet said as the cast dispersed. "There is a camp bed but I lost it." Lawrie's confusion as to how one could lose a camp bed in an ordinary house – houses generally didn't grow spare buildings like Trennels - was resolved when Harriet's bijou one-bed flat proved to be under a good three feet of clothing, bedding and papers. To be fair, there was a path to the sofa, which was large and long, and after a very long day, Lawrie slept soundly.  
  
At nine o’clock, she was awoken by Harriet bustling round and shoving a mug of tea under her nose. "Time to move. Need to do the tech today, in as much costume as we can. Do you have tights? The outfit is a bit hairy." Suddenly terrified as to what terrible costumes a provincial rep might have for its Tempest, Lawrie nodded dumbly. If she had to be in a daft tentacle costume, she mustn't cry...  
  
By ten, they were back at the Corn Exchange and a capable-looking woman Lawrie hadn't met before was sewing a costume, taking it in. "Harriet's way thinner than Tony. She needs the tunic to fit, to get the gravitas. I'm Carol; stage manager, costumes, props, general dogsbody, assuming I can't find a handy student. Thousands of them cluttering up the city, there are, but can never find one when you need one! We're up against Rosencrantz & Guildenstern at the ADC, and HMS Pinafore at the Arts, so they're probably all hanging round there." She sniffed, put down the ducal tunic and rummaged in a large, battered suitcase. "Here, try this on."

  
_This_ , Lawrie was relieved to see, was a plain tunic and loose shorts, with an overshirt of sacking to give an impression of hairiness. It went over her knees in a way that was probably unintended, the absent Nigel presumably being taller than five foot six, but would serve well enough. "Sure? You prance about a bit - see if it's OK as is or if it wants a bit of hemming. I don't think Harriet has any firm ideas for make-up or hair, so let her know if you do. I know she rather hoped to twist Nigel's grey curls into something like dreadlocks, but that's really not going to work for you." She laughed; Lawrie's blonde hair was still chin-length and poker straight.

  
"Do you have a skullcap? I'll show her what I had in mind." Lawrie worked away confidently with kirby grips and some facepaint, and looked back at Carol ten minutes later. "What do you think?"  


"That is - right unnerving. The face don't even look like you."  
Lawrie giggled, and went to say "boo!" to the others. Especially Ben and Tony. She crept into the side room, finger to her lips. Helen and Simon pretended not to notice her. She leapt onto Ben's back with an eerie howl.

  
"Aaaaaagh!" Ben stumbled backwards, caught sight of Lawrie's uncanny face, reddened and blackened, inhuman yet human, and gasped as he managed to shake her off. "You... you bitch!"  
  
"And the red plague rid you, for learning me your language!", Lawrie retorted.

  
Simon doubled over in laughter, spidery, all black denim arms and legs. "She's gotcha, mate! She's gotcha!"

  
The tech rehearsal went reasonably smoothly; the taciturn lad doing lighting had created a more-complex design than expected from the limited arrangements available, and programmed it in perfectly, so that his stand-in only had to press a button on cue for a weird and wonderful setting to magically appear. Harriet had sensibly kept to limited sound effects, again prepared in advance and only needing a button-press from the competent Carol. Ben managed his costume changes and to sneak off the stage as required to switch from Trinculo to Gonzalo and back, apparently a feat of amazing skill that he needed to boast of to everyone except Harriet. Tony needed a couple prompts but at least managed to act as if they were intentional thoughtful pauses on Prospero's part. Calum had adopted method acting and cavorted around everyone in the green room, bending inhumanly, which Lawrie found creepy, and, as the day went on, increasingly annoying. She was mainly on stage with Trinculo and Stephano, and acting drunk for most of it, so she was intensely relieved that Simon was both talented and easy to work with, and that Ben had been nothing but professional since her surprise appearance that morning. She was unaware that this was mainly thanks to Simon's hiss in Ben's ear, carrying all the criminal threat he could: "Lay one finger on her and I'll do yer."  
  
Ben might not have inspiration but he could take direction well, so Harriet's choreographed scuffles, "up with a foot, now grab his ankle, no, other hand, yes, now both roll sideways away from Caliban..." evolved into convincing drunken fights. Lawrie was guiltily aware that Ben and Simon were both better at the physical scenes without her than the ones with, which must be her fault, so she concentrated as hard as she could to get them right. In fact, the initial awkwardness of both men stemmed from trying very hard not to grab her where they shouldn't, which never occurred to her; if she had been told, Lawrie would have been most surprised and told them not to bother. The scene was _far_ more important than an indecently-placed hand.  
  
"Right!" Harriet called out, around six in the evening. "Carol, John, stay here and we'll go over the lighting changes. Rest of you, there's a tab set up in the Eraina for dinner, don't abuse it, and I should see you there in the hour."  
  
"The Eraina's an institution. Huge portions, dirt cheap," Simon explained.  
" _Mostly_ edible," Helen commented.  
Simon nodded and clarified, "Go for the Greek food or the pizzas. They're safe. _Don’t_ have the curry!"  
  
Lawrie let herself be swept along down narrow alleys between yellow stone buildings and an ugly multi-storey, and entered what appeared to be a warm basement bar, every corner a vaulted alcove with tables, but then stairs went down further into a sub-basement, where the bays were larger but the increased garlic and frying smells didn't completely block the scent of damp. They shuffled along yellow-varnished pine benches, Lawrie letting both Ben and Tony sit down first, so she wouldn't have to be next to them. She ended up between Calum and Helen, opposite Simon.

Helen, it turned out, was much more friendly off-duty - or perhaps, simply when not presenting an icy persona in front of Tony. She'd joined Harriet's troupe even before any pay had been forthcoming, along with Ben and Simon and two of the incapacitated crew. Tony had been roped in later, for the older male roles; Calum had been sought for his acrobatics for various shows in the last year; Nigel and the younger actors had only been recruited for this production, which was their first in central Cambridge. It might even, if they were lucky, make enough money to fund a trip to Edinburgh, for the Festival – "that’s ' _enough’_ as in to hire a minibus that might have once passed an MOT, all of youse kipping on the floor of one room, meals being allus chips, and precious little pay divvy, once the venue’s paid," Calum clarified. "Who'd be an actor, aye?"

  
"All right for you, love," Helen responded. "You supplement your income as the busking acrobat. Pitch down outside Covent Garden on a sunny weekend, cavort for a couple hours, twenty quid easy. Course, you then drink half of it that night..."

" _On_ a good day, _with_ a lot of luck, _once_ , that was. Tour-load of Americans at the right moment. Usually it's just breaking my back for half-of-sod-all, and not even a kind word upon getting home." He looked impishly at Helen, who thwapped at him with the enormous three-fold menu, narrowly missing Lawrie's nose.

"Oh, 'scuse me, Lawrie. This'un doesn't know a good thing when he lives with it. Don't know why I stay with him, I don't."

"The rent's cheap and it's opposite Tesco's," Calum deadpanned, wilfully interpreting 'stay' in the Scottish sense. "Ah, you dinnae know we were a couple! Sure, no reason why you should, seeing as we try not to make it too obvious!"

" _And_ you're an actor and as camp as a row of bloody tents," Helen added fondly. "Go on Lawrie, admit it, you thought he was gay, didn’t you? It's all right, everyone does."  
Lawrie squawked, awkwardly, realised it wasn’t an awkward conversation after all, and managed a little laugh. Too tinkly, like Lois Sanger, she felt, but around her the conversation moved on like a tide.

"Which shows would we take to Edinburgh, d'you reckon?" Simon asked Lawrie's side of the table in general.

"Mmm. It would have been the Tempest, most like, if we hadn't been cursed with plagues. I don’t know when you have to book by - maybe just see what our top hits are by then?" Helen was firmly practical.  
Calum waved this prosaic idea away. "Oh, I think we should be more ambitious; plan a new show to take there! Make use of all those attics and basements and their eerie atmosphere; I'll say Little Shop of Horrors." 

"Got a pet orchestra, have you?” Simon was sarcastic. “Or someone to feed us? The rights would cost a mint!" Lawrie realised another reason why Shakespeare and the classics were still so popular to perform. "What do _you_ reckon, Lawrie? Up for singing?"

She shook her head, vigorously. "I _really_ can't sing. Seriously. When I was at school, they'd get me to act and then put my twin sister just off-stage to do any singing. I'm that bad!" It was, she felt, almost worth being incapable of singing in order to provide that anecdote.

Calum looked at her oddly. "You’re having us on about the twin sister, though but?"

"Nope. Identical twin, name of Nicola, ten minutes older. She can't act, I can't sing, and it really wasn't just for winding up the teachers who wanted us being a pair all the time. Didn't stop us from having to do The Prince and the Pauper, _and_ Twelfth Night, _and_ Comedy of Errors, though..."

"So did you have to do all the acting, with her just turning up to prove there were two of you? Double the lines and all?"

Lawrie shook her head. "No, she's not that bad! More just giving me roles that expanded and her standing about, narrator-style."

"Unless it was singing and you didn't get a look-in?"

She assented; that’s how it had been. Which, she realised, wasn't fair. Her own voice was adequate, not bad, similar to Nicola's passable, but far from impressive, acting. But singing was always held to higher standards at Kingscote; more girls received specialist training. Acting was treated as aberrant talent rather than a skill that should be explicitly taught, honed, maybe, one day, mastered. It shouldn’t have taken her whole school career to get to her first real drama lesson. But then, if she were to criticise Kingscote for _all_ its failings, she'd never finish in a month of Speech Days…

And of course Nicola, bonkers child, didn't care in the least for singing, and was trying to pursue a Naval career, despite the Navy clearly wanting a Marlow _sans_ penis even less than they'd finally wanted to keep Peter. Rumour had it that the 2nd Frigates would soon allow Wrens to serve on operations. Lawrie couldn't see a squadron of Gileses swallowing their chauvinism and allowing Nicola to control HMS Brilliant, because the sensible thing _never_ happened with the Navy. Or Nicola, come to think of it.  
  
"More wine, Lawrie?" Harriet plonked herself down next to Simon. "For future reference, if they bring out the ouzo, just say no. Or you're fired. No, not really, but tomorrow morning you'd wish you had been. If they try to persuade you with the retsina, I don’t need to tell you not to - the stuff smells and tastes like Dettol and feels like paint stripper!" She collared a waiter. "No more on this tab, thank you."  
  
Lawrie could see Ferdinand and the sixth-formers looking disappointed. Lawrie had been to many a party during her RADA years and the two-and-a-half since, but had always managed rehearsals and performances in a sober state with _almost_ no trace of a hangover, which might explain why her career was steadily involving more acting and less temping than the other way round; the fate of at least half her cohort. Parties at the end of a run, however, were thus all the more enjoyable, and Lawrie was glad to have practised getting to the falling-over-drunk stage safely at the Merricks', before getting near that point with ever-so-solicitous chaps around, who always turned ‘accidentally’ gropey the minute all eyes were off them.

Lawrie efficiently shrugged off the advances of young Ferdinand-whatever-his-name-was on the walk back from the Eraina, and was relieved when he had said goodnight at the bus station, on his way home to a village south of town. "Such a nice and decorative lad, but just _so_ young," she told Tim later. "Just too boring!" Harriet, clocking the situation, was most relieved.  
  


  



	4. Chapter 4

The dress rehearsal was the usual perceived shambles, Harriet screaming, Tony swearing, Ben shouting back at him, Lawrie nearly but proudly _didn’t_ cry, but eventually it and the lengthy cast notes session were over.

"Ere's yer dockey," said the kid passing her another Gardies kebab for dinner. Lawrie noted the new word and nodded her thanks. She had to wait for Harriet and then walk a mile; suddenly exhausted, she hoped the food would energise her enough to get there. She must have dozed while Harriet spoke with the Corn Exchange staff, as next she knew, Harriet was bustling her along, passing on that ticket sales had been reasonable, and if reviews in the weekly papers were good, it might even sell out on the weekend.

"So no pressure for tomorrow night, eh?" Harriet laughed in the highly-strung way that all directors seemed to reach just before First Night. At least Harriet wasn't trying to hide it; it was why Tim Keith was her closest friend but she would never, ever work for Tim again. That Sixth Form Comedy of Errors that Tim had reluctantly taken on - " _do you wish to direct the School Play this year or not, Thalia_?", Keith was reported to have said - had been well received but an unpleasant experience for the lead actors - the ones worth criticising, as Miranda had astutely pointed out. It was their Edinburgh production of St Joan which had led to Lawrie storming out in tears but, unusually for her, having her actions supported by her cast-mates. The shock of it had helped her save tears for when they were really merited. Four years on, Tim and Lawrie still didn't speak of it.  
  
An early night; light breakfast; various run-throughs of scenes to tighten them up; a dozen mugs of tea. Finally time to dress; it was crowded in their green room backstage. Lawrie fought the urge to be sick - _I'm excited, not nervous_ was the mantra she tried to calm herself with, but what distracted her properly was two of the kids complaining how sick _they_ felt. _Throw up or shut up_ , Lawrie muttered. She touched up her make-up for the third time; Carol, a disembodied voice coming through a speaker, poked buttons. Another voice: the house manager. "House lights down, please."

"Stand by, LX One. LX One, go." Up in the lighting gallery, John set the first fade sequence of lights going. Ben and Harriet and the teenagers crouched in the wings, ready to be shipwrecked. And they were off.

Fifteen minutes later, Lawrie crawled behind the steel deck and up into the implied hut. Wood enough. Curse. Nips and pinches. Hide under the cloak. Ben behaved impeccably. Kneeling at Simon's feet and worshipping him - she'd felt like worshipping his calm and competence many times during the dress - meeting the rest of the shipwrecked crew - standoff with Prospero - and a sigh of sympathy from the audience for this being, enslaved by this arrogant sorcerer. Lawrie smiled to herself - that was the moment she'd been waiting for all these years.

  
No time to spare, though - in a trice it was time to come out for a curtain call as they’d rehearsed - the auditorium was reasonably full for a Tuesday night; they couldn’t _all_ be reviewers. Back to the green room; fold up costume; costume back on shelf. Lawrie was unsure what to do next, but Simon grabbed her arm. "We're off to the Eagle. Coming?"

"There’s a key under the little statue, Lawrie. Be here for 11 tomorrow if I don't see you," Harriet said on her way out, presumably off home.  
  
They made it for last orders. Ben bought the round, protesting he wasn’t going to make a habit of it, while Lawrie hovered pointedly and successfully pounced on an emptying table near the fire.  
"Cheers.” Simon raised his pint. “So's where you from, then, Lawrie?"

"Drama school, or like ever?"

"Born and bred, I meant. Can tell you’re RADA a mile off. No offence."

Lawrie took it as intended. "London, originally. We lived in Hampstead until I was thirteen, then our cousin died and Dad inherited his farm in Dorset, near Wade Abbas if you know it, and we all moved down there. It was pretty strange living in the place we'd spent our holidays in, only without Jon there. And then our new neighbours, who'd been family friends all our lives, bought _our_ old house, so I still pop in there too. No escaping the past!"

  
"And you've got a twin sister, right?" Ben quizzed her.

" _And_ the rest. I’m the youngest of eight. Six girls, two boys." This always made for a talking point.

"Whoa. Sounds even more packed than my house growing up, Simon said.  
  
Lawrie tactfully omitted pointing out that more children didn’t mean a squash if you had a huge house. She'd rapidly realised that even at RADA, widely acknowledged to be the poshest drama school – to which Simon had alluded - her family's home was unusually impressive. Even if ready cash was in much less supply than for many of her classmates. She'd taken longer to learn discretion, but 18 months travelling to wherever there was work, in towns across England, making first impressions every week, had provided her with lots of blunt opinions on herself and she had learned when to keep quiet. And when to hold up her end of a conversation by reciprocating questions.

"How about you, Simon? From _and_ study?"

"Me, I'm from south of the river." He grinned as he made a crucifix with his index fingers. "Bermondsey. As for my drama training, where do you think?"

  
"Royal Northern? Oh, no..." as she saw Ben smile into his pint, obeying the order to drink up. "No idea. Where?"

"Nowhere, really. Few local classes and the university of life." Simon didn’t sound convincing, and Ben's disappointed tiny eyebrow-raise confirmed it. Ben should never play poker, Lawrie felt. Actually, given she was skint, again, he _should_.  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Lawrie woke on Harriet’s sofa at nine, her wrist-watch beeping at her, and managed to grab some toast before heading back to the Corn Exchange for ten. Harriet collared her. "Could we tone down Caliban’s exit and sympathy a bit? I can’t have you upstaging Tony.” It was a rhetorical question, an order really.

“ _No_. Really.” Seeing how this rebellion was going down, Lawrie inhaled, channelling all her adult reasonableness. “Can I have a word?” They walked into the corridor, away from the cast, and Lawrie girded her guts and continued, “He _has_ to be done like that. I’m not even sure I could do that bit another way - it’s not like choosing how physically to make his threat, he just _is_ sympathetic!”  
Tight-lipped, Harriet was failing to hide her annoyance.

“I’m _really_ sorry. It’s just - Caliban is the role I’ve dreamed of since I was 12 or so, wasn’t allowed to do - _twice_ \- and it’s been in my head all this time.” She chuckled ruefully. “I’m actually rather glad to be able to exorcise him! But he _has_ to be sympathetic here, and the audience _are_ going to go ‘awww,’ and Tony will just have to deal with it!” She managed to avoid stamping her foot, but it took effort.

"Hmm.” Harriet tapped her foot, agitated. “You promise you don't have opinions like this for any other roles?"

"Oh, I've got _opinions_ ," Lawrie said easily, realising her battle looked won. "I just don’t have _conviction_ , most of the time. Usually I get told off for that!"  
  
"Right," Harriet said, back in the rehearsal room, turning back to Tony. "The audience is going to be on Caliban's side when he exits finally, so you need to show your complexity - you've enslaved this creature and now hate him for his attack on your daughter; your relief and pleasure will show in a minute when you get her married off, so you can afford to be angry for a moment. Let's try that."  
  
Harriet took Lawrie aside over lunch. "You'd better be right that there aren't other roles that you're so stubborn about."

"None that I'd argue about after initial rehearsals, let alone the first night," Lawrie promised.

"Good. In that case, consider yourself hired for Inspector Hound and After Magritte, week after next. It's in Bury St Edmunds, which has the advantage that I have a friend whose house we can stay in - you and I get one bedroom, the lads the other; Tony and Calum and Helen commute. Then a fortnight in Ely and one in Northampton. You get whatever role I give you and you play it as directed. OK?"

Lawrie nodded. “Yes, ma’am!”  
  
The Evening News was delivered to them that afternoon. The critic loved the gymnast Ariel, mentioned him favourably as a pair with the 'sympathetic' Caliban; called the production 'competent'. Harriet was satisfied. "They hate 90% of what they see - _trust_ me, this is good. Well done, everybody."  
  
It was in the pre-first night rehearsals that Lawrie realised her view of Stephano, from kneeling at his feet in worship, was really very favourable. Such a shame he couldn't wear those tight jeans in the show... She did wonder if Simon was meaning to add an erotic frisson to lines such as "open your mouth... this will shake thy shaking... open your chaps again", speaking fondly, stroking her head. Or was it just giving actions to the language of "you cat"?  
  
As the run went on, it became harder for Lawrie to avoid sounding like a lovestruck teenager asking Simon, "Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven?", and she was immensely thankful for Simon's flat reply in one afternoon’s rehearsal when he jokingingly copied the advert: "Nah, Luton Airport!" She reminded herself she was only acting the scene, but it took all her self-control to handle lines like "I'll kiss thee; prithee, be my god", looking up at his face with right degree of adoration for a drunken creature, not too much like a girl. "I'll kiss thy foot," was easier, more archaic, but the reply, "come on down" was back in the world of innuendo, especially when he channelled Leslie Crowther on the Thursday night.  
  
Act Three, and again trying not to sound the teenage girl even if she was twenty-two: "Wilt thou be pleased, to hearken once again to the suit I made to thee?" But then the chance to give the audience the creeps as she plotted to kill Prospero, glorying in that _wonderful_ speech of the isle full of noises, all the way through promising Miranda to Stephano, "when Prospero is destroyed." _This_ was why she'd become an actress, constantly thinking about words, how to say lines, _working_ at it in ways her family had never respected as being work. It made all the bedsits around the country, with their evil dribbly showers, worth it. And now she had another steady rep job, with a much better team and, as important, a pleasant bunch. Harriet was a joy as long as she was fuelled with tea at hourly intervals, though, as for any director, tech and dress excepted. Tony was inoffensive enough as long as his ego was left unpricked. Helen and Calum were fairly quiet but good sounding-boards for any questions about lines or the rest of the cast. Ben didn't fancy Lawrie - whether he’d been put off by her standing up for herself, or whether he just never really had, she didn’t know, but the fact was novel enough to be interesting as well as a relief, and they got on all right. He'd even asked her opinion on a couple lines.

And then there was Simon. He liked her, but Lawrie reluctantly had concluded that there didn’t seem to be any mutual attraction from him to her. Maybe she was a bit too young – he must be thirty - or a bit too Establishment, or too embarrassingly scared of spiders - though many people would have run from _that_ one in the Eagle's back corridor that he'd chivalrously saved her from after the first night. Oh, well. Friends was probably best when working so closely. “And when did _you_ get so sensible?”, she heard Peter’s voice in her mind’s ear.  
  
By Saturday night, the house was just about full - there was a gallery that could seat a few hundred if necessary, if anyone was desperate for seats even with poor views, and its front three rows were occupied. "Last time _that_ was full was for David Bowie," Tony explained knowingly. Scathing reviews for the students' Rosencrantz and the Arts show must have helped, Helen observed archly. They began.  
  
The play went at a cracking pace. In no time, Lawrie was exclaiming, "what a thrice-double-fool am I!", and a wail of sympathy arose from the audience which she felt she had to salute before she exited. She heard a boo for Prospero, but he handled it well, turning back to Alonso (Simon again, smart jacket added) and holding the pause before his penultimate speech. Finally, Tony finished the epilogue and it was the curtain call. Rowdy students in the gallery foot-drummed in enthusiasm, adding thunderous noise to the applause. The house manager brought out a huge bouquet for Harriet, and they all trooped off the stage.  
  
And then it was over. Apart from clearing the stage, they didn't need to sort anything that night - unlike student shows, where the get-out could last until 2am and had to be completed before any cast would be served in the ADC bar, Ferdinand - _Josh_ \- explained. So they all went back to the pub, which, given Ben and Simon were lodging in it, obligingly included them all in its lock-in.  
  
After a couple glasses of the circulating wine, Lawrie gained the Dutch courage to say to Simon, "So where'd you do your acting classes, really?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. You were so carefully _not_ saying."

Simon shrugged, and looked like he was trying to hide a deep breath as he replied, "Feltham."

"Sorry? I don’t know it."

Ben interjected, "You wouldn’t. It's a Young Offenders Institution."

Simon confirmed as Lawrie mouthed the word with him, " _Borstal_."

"Oh. Um. I'm guessing you didn’t apply there for its comprehensive drama programme?", Lawrie replied calmly, facing Simon rather than Ben. Sarcasm was so often one’s friend.

Simon held her eye as he confirmed, "No. Armed robbery." He pulled the leather jacket round himself again, protectively.

Lawrie nodded. "Which led to what, three years?"

"Three-and-a-half. Seven, but good behaviour.” He frowned. “You don't sound shocked, or even proper surprised, which is _unusual_ for a posh bird like you, let me tell you." It was a question. _Why?_  
  
What could she say? 'My brother shot a German commander dead; the family friend I mentioned was investigated for murder and nearly killed by the culprit; the pair of them managed to sell a wholesale package of cocaine we got hold of, and my share of that boosted my lifestyle after school nicely, thank you', or another story: 'both brothers kidnapped a child from care and transported him back to his father, including an illegal boat landing in France...'; she stuck to the bits that most left her family out:

"I used to hang out in a local caff, people-watching. Got to know a couple lads, one asked me on a date which was a mistake... Anyway, they turned out to be part of a gang that got done for drug-smuggling and a stabbing, so the scary ones got hauled off at Her Maj's Pleasure, but a couple who were on the fringes, and one of their girlfriends, we would chat when we met up, for a few years." Skidskid, Espresso and Spin - or as they'd reintroduced themselves after the Thuggery’s demise, Daz, Omar and Pen. “Omar had stayed to look after the pigeons; Daz had got a YTS gig nearby, Pen lived with her mum and wee brothers... anyway, learnt a lot." She'd been a good distraction from Pen's shoplifting, and saved Omar from too much questioning about items believed to be missing from Monks Culvery while Maudie was inside.

" _Pigeons_?" Ben asked.  
Lawrie laughed. "Pigeons. Used to import cocaine wholesale from the Continent. Could get half an ounce on their leg, you see." As Ben was open-mouthed, and Simon clearly dimly remembering the news story, she explained, "Local lads, mostly on probation, helped look after the birds, until it all went to crap - one of the lads tried to kill my friend who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, another stabbed _him_ , and then _he_ got killed in a car crash when the cops showed up. Not my friend, the guy with the knife died.”  
  
Simon looked at her. "Kinky Livesey. The one what got knifed, I mean. How the _hell_ did your mate get across _him_?"  
  
Lawrie tried to cast her mind back. It was all hazy. "Nothing to do with the drugs. I think Kinky's friend nicked my bicycle and we were trying to get it back - something like that - we didn’t know they weren’t just any mischievous local lads! You _knew_ him?"  
  
Simon nodded. "Inside. Nasty bit of work," he said, shortly. The GBHs put down to Kinky made for a _long_ list.  
  
Lawrie proved she really had learned some tact and offered to buy the next round. “More of this celestial liquor?” Though, waking up on some cushions on Ben and Simon’s floor in the morning, she realised she _still_ hadn’t mastered alcohol.

 ****************************  
  
The next morning, it occurred to Harriet that she hadn't called Tim since meeting Lawrie.

"Tim _bloody_ Keith! You didn't tell me Lawrence S. Marlow was a woman!"

"Oh, didn’t I?" Tim's innocence was clearly faked. "Turned out all right, though, didn’t it?"  
  
  



End file.
